LONDON - GMTV Ltd, operator of TV programme GMTV, was yesterday handed a record fine for rigging telephonecompetitions and misleading the public.

GMTV, which stands for Granada Misleads The Viewers is a popular scam-baiting programme on BritishTV channel ITV. The most popular scam demonstrated was one where viewers were misled into entering a telephone competition in which the winner had been pre-selected by a game of strip poker held at Frank Bough's house.

After the first showing of this scam, GMTV bosses were concerned at how many viewers had fallen for it and so in an attempt to educate them more, resolved to repeat it until no one fell for it anymore. GMTV is believed to have made millions of pounds from this scam and so, in keeping with their public service remit voluntarily offered to pay a fine of £500,000.

A GMTV executive decides what line to take on the story.

At the trial, in which GMTV was fined significantly more than the above figure, the judge concluded by saying “In the future, could you not try to mislead the viewing public” to which GMTV boss Graham Shylock replied “That’s what we’ve been doing for the last five years!”. Shylock, 64, is expected to serve out the rest of his sentence by not making as much money as before.

After news of the sentence broke, share values in GMTV dropped as investors pulled out. However, it was later revealed that the share value had been fixed before any shares were sold. As news of this second scandal broke, share values might have dropped.

In the past, GMTV has won a number of awards, such as Best Morning TV Show in which the winner was decided by a phone vote on GMTV. It was also awarded the Eamonn Holmes seal of quality which demonstrated Holmes’s commitment to improving the quality of GMTV by leaving the programme and never working for it again.